Rahul Dravid Announces ODI Retirement, To Quit After The England Series

Rahul Dravid is all set to retire after the ODI series against England

Rahul Dravid, who made a surprise comeback to the Indian squad for the upcoming five match ODI series against England, will retire from ODI and T20 cricket after the England series is over.

Dravid, who was the lone Indian batsmen to score consecutive hundreds in the ongoing test series against England, was recalled to the limited format of the game after a gap of two years to provide stability to the fragile Indian middle order in seaming English conditions .

“I am honored and privileged to be selected in the Indian one-day team,” said Dravid after the warm-up match against Northamptonshire. “Since I had not been picked for one-day cricket for the last two years, I was obviously a little surprised and to be honest, because I had not been picked, I had not informed the selectors or the board of my desire to solely focus on Test cricket.”

“At the end of this one-day series, I would like to announce my retirement from one-day and Twenty20 cricket and concentrate only on Test cricket. I am committed, as always to give my best to India in this one-day series and obviously the Test series that follows.” said Dravid after India played out a draw against Northamptonshire.

Dravid last played a ODI against the West Indies during the 2009 Champions Trophy in Johannesburg, South Africa.

In a ODI career spanning for almost 15 years, Dravid has amassed 10765 runs averaging just a shade under 40. In the 339 ODI’s Dravid played, he scored 12 hundreds and 82 fifties with a career best of 153 against New Zealand at Hyderabad in 1999. He was the backbone of the India’s top order for more than a decade and consistently scored for India while batting at his preferred number 3 position. His text book technique and classical approach towards batting made him one of the most successful ODI batsmen of the modern age, and he will be tremendously missed by Indian cricket in the years to come.

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